Subrick- it's awesome to get that feeling of excitement, you'll have to post the announcement here.

As for myself I'm enjoying a lazy sunday, one of my favorite times for fucking around with musics. I came up with a concept and lyrics for the challenge which I'm pretty excited about. But once I sketched out the song on keys I picked up my guitar and immediately became frustrated. I just can't play the damn thing very well, but I'm thinking of taking lessons over the winter.

So instead of banging my head against the wall I decided to try to figure out the theme song to Red Dwarf. The melody was easy peasy but the whole song took me a bit, it's got some tricky chords (inverted Asus4, what?!) but now that I've sorted it I'm rather pleased with myself. Love the show and the tune.

I finally finished a death metal album that I had been writing for my wife. It's a concept album around the idea of her being a serial killer. There's a song for her stalking her victim, one for her torturing, killing, hiding the body, etc. Maybe not the most original idea for death metal, but it turned out really well, and I'm very happy with the album. Since it's for my wife's birthday and she's a huge animal person, I decided to sell it for 5 bucks and make all the proceeds be donated do no-kill animal shelters. If anyone wants to hear it, here's the link to it:

Now that I finished this album, I can get back to work on my "regular" music. It's similar to that, just a bit more melodic, and tuned to C standard instead of B. I just need to put vocals on a couple songs, re-record a few solos and get some album art and it'll be done. After that, this will have been a hugely busy year for me, musically! Not only did I learn a ton about recording and production and drastically improve my overall sound, but I released a thrash EP, learned how to do some good solid death growls and will release 2 full length death metal albums (well, 1 death metal and 1 melodic death metal). And I already have about 5 songs in various stages of completion for another album! Wooooo, productivity!

_________________Music For The Dead Death, doom, black, grind, and more. New albums out from Eternal Oblivion and Devourer in the Mist.

Still no real luck getting any sort of metal band together, my my non-metal project seems to be taking of quite well. We're getting some shows lined up in reputable venues around Chicago, so things are looking up. As far as writting goes, we've all been writting machines this past month. We just replaced our drummer, but he's got basically all of our material down already. Just biding time 'til we can record our album.

Played Warhorns Festival last Friday with the folk metal band, which was awesome. Good crowd, met some well cool people, and got very drunk. Great fun. And since getting back, I've got another doom song written, which will fit both the songwriting challenge and the EP I'm working on.

And the doom band is now starting to get some label attention, and we've got a good few gig offers. Including one this Friday, which I really hope we play.

And if that wasn't enough, I'm putting on a gig in December that my post metal band should be ready to play at. And I've just been offered some session work.

Well considering I'm a couple days late on the whole "big announcement" thing, here's just a big general update regarding Sorrowseed's new album and other band related matters.

1. The name of the album will be "Nemesis Engine". We were trying to decide between that and a couple others, and after much deliberation and getting the opinions of close friends of the band we decided upon that name. There's also a song called "Nemesis Engine" on the album, and it's without a doubt the most extreme song we've ever done.

2. Continuing from the above, the album will be significantly heavier than our first. Those that saw the music video for Ocean Scorn heard that the song was very melodic, very flowy, and featured such elements as acoustic & clean guitars. The new album will feature a lot more riffing than flowing chords, it'll have much more of a progressive edge to it through the use of more odd time signatures and longer song lengths (the album as of right now is nearing 58 minutes; the first album was 83 minutes, but it was a double album with 20 songs while the new one will have 14), as well as even harsher vocals and more extreme drumming.

3. While I can't reveal a tracklist at the moment due to not all the songs having a proper title yet, I can say that I have contributed a song of my own to the album. It is an orchestral interlude track entitled "Maddened by the Midnight Dance". I'm very proud to have contributed something to the album musically and when we reveal what it sounds like I'm sure at least a few people here will enjoy it.

4. Andy LaRocque of King Diamond and Death will be performing a guest guitar solo on the album. I had contacted him about 3 weeks ago seeing if he'd be interested, he said yes, and we got the solo from him on Sunday morning. As he described it to us, it's a classic Andy LaRocque style solo, going between shredding madness and melodic guitar harmonies in the blink of an eye. Fitting too that the track his solo is for is a very traditional metal and King Diamond inspired song.

5. Last, and most certainly not least, Sorrowseed and I will be touring the Northeastern United States starting one month from today on October 25th at the Webster Underground in Hartford, Connecticut. The tour will then proceed on the 26th, 27th, 28th, and 29th in Manchester, New Hampshire (Milly's Tavern), Smithfield, Rhode Island (Maniac Lounge), a yet to be decided venue in New York state, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (JR's Bar), before culminating on Halloween at Dusk in Providence, Rhode Island with a headlining Halloween show, with Lolita Black and Abnormality featured alongside us. We've created a Kickstarter page to help us fund the tour, so if you want to you can donate at the link below.

We will be performing songs from the Nemesis Engine album on the tour, so we hope to see people on this board from around the areas the shows will be held at at the shows. As for when the album will be complete and available for purchase, there's no set date yet but it will be at some point in early 2013.

Also, if you haven't seen the aforementioned music video for Ocean Scorn, you can below. It was filmed over a year ago in Cape Cod, Massachusetts and on the black sand beaches of Iceland.

did vocals for one of my songs for the challenge. the rest I'll record tmwr. Not sure if I'll do all the vocals tmwr or not. probably not.

Also wrote a bit for this new project I got a few riffs... I'm going to confirm with the other half and see what we should shape more with it. Think I nailed the sound though a bit more messy than my standard fair but not totally blown out.

I got a reply from a metal review site; they're going to review my new album and email-interview me, so that's neat. The one thing I hate is that I can't play live. Being a solo death metal musician stationed just south of the north korean border, I don't really have opportunities to do that, haha. Well, in just under 2 months I'm leaving this place and finally going back to the states to be with my wife, and we're going to be in Maryland for 3 years, so maybe(hopefully) I can find a small metal bar or somewhere that will let a solo metal musician play live. I don't care if I'm opening for some 15 year olds playing linkin park covers, I just miss playing live. I can do it with my laptop, that's no issue, it's just an issue of finding a place that will allow.

Aside from that, I went through a lot of half-finished songs, and songs that didn't make it onto my EP or album or won't make it onto my next album for varying reasons, and there's a lot of good ideas in there. Although I've moved on from thrash metal, I still kinda want to slowly accumulate some old-school style thrash songs and eventually put out another thrash album. I'll probably just give it away. I also bought some decent cover art for my next album, just needs some slight modifications and it should be good. The only issue is that I'm finally set on my logo, and I don't know where or how to put it on this cover art where it will look decent. Ah well, I'll figure something out.

_________________Music For The Dead Death, doom, black, grind, and more. New albums out from Eternal Oblivion and Devourer in the Mist.

The only issue is that I'm finally set on my logo, and I don't know where or how to put it on this cover art where it will look decent. Ah well, I'll figure something out.

'pload and post it here, perhaps we can share some ideas to help you fit it into the cover, I don't think there are any assholes here who will steal your artwork or anything, but you can always watermark it just in case.

The night shift at my work got dissolved and now I have to work from 1500 to 2300hs, that means rearranging every scheduled study hour I had, GODFUCKINGDAMNIT.I study music by the way, that's why it's related to the topic, so it doesn't seem that much of a random rant haha

I know what you mean infinite... but at some point when I get to stay home I have some guys lined up to take my grind band live once again. congrats on the upcoming review & interview.

today was pretty productive.got a demo for this project done.. meaning a single song and got some further direction on where to take it and what to stay away from so I'm pleased that the songwriting portion passed the test it's more of making everything even nastier.

I know what you mean infinite... but at some point when I get to stay home I have some guys lined up to take my grind band live once again. congrats on the upcoming review & interview.

today was pretty productive.got a demo for this project done.. meaning a single song and got some further direction on where to take it and what to stay away from so I'm pleased that the songwriting portion passed the test it's more of making everything even nastier.

also wrote and recorded fully 2 more songs for the doom challenge.

I kinda gave up all hopes of being able to just find a person that can do proper blast beats, so I'm hoping when I get to Maryland I can find a small place that'll let me play, accompanied by my laptop for drums and bass guitar. Thanks on the congrats, I actually ended up getting another review, from destructive-music.com, and he gave my new album a 9/10. I'm really happy about that.

_________________Music For The Dead Death, doom, black, grind, and more. New albums out from Eternal Oblivion and Devourer in the Mist.

Very cool. I'm lucky that I can switch between instruments so it's always easy to find a drummer cause just about 10 out of 10 times I'm it. I'm just happy there are some guitarists that want to play what I write without some lip about how it was written or bitch how it hurts their pussy hand like the last and only other guitarist that I worked with in 54R. It was always stated this isn't a joint band... it's play what I write and if you write something and I enjoy it then we will use it but mainly I won't so don't bother.

I sorted through the huge pile of songs in various stages of recording on my computer and found ones that I had basically thrown out, because they don't fit in with my current death metal/melodic death metal style of playing. Most of them are very old-school thrashy. So I tuned my guitar up to D and re-recorded them, and got an 80s Marshall-style guitar tone going on, and I'm digging it. I might end up with enough to release an old-school thrash album one day, just for kicks.

I've also been wanting to write a black metal song or two. I like the idea and concept behind black metal, I just don't like how most bands do it. I'd like to see if I can do black metal vocals, also. Should be fun.

_________________Music For The Dead Death, doom, black, grind, and more. New albums out from Eternal Oblivion and Devourer in the Mist.

The band is tarting to get some decent gigs. We just played a battle on Friday, one that by a landslide, and we'll be spening the rest of the month basically between Chicago and St. Louis playing shows. We're booked at some place in Chicago that claims to pay bewteen $750-$1500 per show? We'll see about that. that sounds just too damn high.

Thanks! I was actually going for that. I think with the next one I'll go far faster Like in another thread... it was actually intended for a different vocalist but they never came through and those 3 songs had been sitting around for a year so I figured I'd give it a name, do the vocals and then see where I want to expand upon later with it.

Im getting faster as a guitarist, and Im starting to understand some of the jazz music theory iv been learning better, and how to apply it to what I play. Using a two string bar chord anywhere to make a chaotic grindy riff has become result of this. I'm still working on writing, but it feels like everything I write and play is very scattered from doom, to black, to grind/ death, to punk. I really need to figure out how to combined all these and make them work together.

Also noticed my little honeytone amp has been sounding pretty good with the tone and overdrive all the way up, where aws with my spider IV it feels like the tone it just not right. Anyone else have any input on this?

Playing a fundraising gig for the local campus radio station tonight, and launching a new single. It's a ridiculously eclectic show, 4 bands completely different styles- blue grass, punk, new wave (us), and metal. We've got a new video too, I'll post it up when it's out on Tuesday.

Just finished a black metal album with a guest vocalist I met through this very board. I'm now slowly working on more tracks for this project and started a new one which is also black metal but melodic/clean guitars/mildly post rock influenced.

I've been working on some black metal lately, and I'll be releasing a split with a buddy of mine who has a 1-man black noise project. Should be pretty fun. I've enjoyed it so far, but I've never been that much into black metal*, so it's a good learning experience to me.

*much of black metal prizes "raw" production, which is their way of saying incredibly shitty production. I hate shitty production.

_________________Music For The Dead Death, doom, black, grind, and more. New albums out from Eternal Oblivion and Devourer in the Mist.

My goal is to initially start a metal band and actually play my composed songs with full band. But the ultimate goal is to compose songs that are very different to any other existing music and even hard to categorize. And of course compose those songs well and enjoyable to the listener. Good example of band like that is Agalloch. Their is simply unique.

I've been writing and recording music from various subgenres of metal lately. Once I get enough songs, I want to release a CD of old school death metal, and possibly a black metal one, too. I'm also getting someone to design me a proper band logo, as mine sucks and I don't like the "let's-see-how-many-pointy-things-we-can-add-to-our-logo" type that too many metal bands use.

Oh, and I've been playing in D standard a lot for the past week or so - due to the old school death metal and black metal - and just last night I picked up one of my main guitars, which is tuned down to C standard. Holy crap it sounded low, haha. And while I do love tuning down to C standard, I will admit that D standard has a certain clarity to it that I like.

_________________Music For The Dead Death, doom, black, grind, and more. New albums out from Eternal Oblivion and Devourer in the Mist.

I've been writing and recording music from various subgenres of metal lately. Once I get enough songs, I want to release a CD of old school death metal, and possibly a black metal one, too. I'm also getting someone to design me a proper band logo, as mine sucks and I don't like the "let's-see-how-many-pointy-things-we-can-add-to-our-logo" type that too many metal bands use.

Oh, and I've been playing in D standard a lot for the past week or so - due to the old school death metal and black metal - and just last night I picked up one of my main guitars, which is tuned down to C standard. Holy crap it sounded low, haha. And while I do love tuning down to C standard, I will admit that D standard has a certain clarity to it that I like.

You lose clarity below D, but that sound can also be something to embrace. Think of Sabbath's sound with the low C#, where the ranges on most amps drastically drop off from crunch to sludge. You can manage a percussive thump out of lower tunings, often through power chords, palm muting, and production, but I always feel like there's a significant difference from D to C#. Layering guitars can swing it a bit either way.